When God Twiddled His Thumbs
A long, long time ago, before there was a galaxy far, far way God sat twiddling his thumbs.
God was rather bored and had nothing to do, especially since video games like Starcraft, Assassins Creed and Bioshock hadn’t been created yet, or Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook.
A day or two prior to 13.6 billion years ago, when the Big Bang occurred God was likely taking a nap, clipping his toenails and thinking about creating ESPN so he could watch Monday Night Football.
I understand all of that sounds a bit far-fetched but what I’ve known about God from teaching I’ve received in the Church is that He really didn’t think about much prior to creating the heavens and the earth, the sun, moon and stars, peach trees and sand dollars, Komodo Dragons and continents and people.
Once God created all of that he had an awful lot on his hands; kind of like the President of the United States with a split Congress and a bad economy.
About the time Adam gnawed on the forbidden fruit God finally had something to do and could finally put some sort of plan forth that would reverse the effects of Adam’s choice. Of course God knew that Adam would do what he did and was just waiting for it to happen; then he could spring Jesus on the world.
This past Sunday I spoke on The Community Life of God at our church in The Short North. I think it was a bit of a mindbender. This is kind of how it went…
Did you know that scientists recently discovered a gigantic swimming pool in space?
It’s a tiny reservoir in a distant Quasar that holds 140 trillion times the mass of water in all the Earth’s oceans.
When scientists found it they were actually looking back in time, to a universe that is expanding. The light of those distant discoveries is just now reaching earth, even though events happened 12 billion years ago, so scientists say.
In the creation account all the way back in Genesis 1:26-27 it tells us 26Then God said, “Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
God did this after sitting around for eternity with nothing on his mind; picking at the cuticles on his fingernails.
Of course when God speaks here in Genesis, he’s speaking in the plural—describes himself as an US—that’s a plural, personal pronoun—one of the things I had tremendous difficulty with in English in school when I was supposed to diagram a sentence with things like subjects and predicates and adverbs. I would have much rather diagramed the contours of the female body at that time.
Being an US means God isn’t an individual; He doesn’t think like an individual or act
like an individual. He’s a community, a fellowship of three persons who are totally unified, undivided and indivisible.
So, after having sat around twiddling his thumbs for like 42 gazillion years, one had to ask, “what was God doing when he created man in his image?”
The answer is: He was giving expression of himself!
Sort of like Dr. Evil gives expression of himself through his clone Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies The Spy Who Shagged Me and Goldmember.
Well, somewhere out there, while ESPN and Monday Night Football was still a dream, when God desired to make man, God had a desire to express himself.
You know how people like to express themselves, sort of the way Lady Gaga does when she pops out of an egg.
Of course, I was never really taught that in Church—this idea that God had a purpose that transcended time in eternity past and will have its ultimate fulfillment in the 21st and 22nd chapters of Revelation.
The Apostle Paul taught some very interesting things that relate to this in Colossians. In verse 15 Paul wrote…He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Whoa…The God who can’t be seen is given expression through the Son?
Then in verse 16 Paul writes…For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him…
Did I read that right?
All that was going on is Genesis 1 was Jesus’ doing!
The creation of angels (including Satan), people, the expanding universe (that swimming pool those scientists have seen), atoms and molecules, aardvarks and apple trees—everything created by Jesus.
Where did God come up with that idea?
Since God is an US, three undivided persons; the Father, Holy Spirit and Son were all equally involved in Jesus creating all things.
Okay, so maybe, just maybe, God had something on his mind and wasn’t just twiddling his thumbs and dreaming about the Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots.
Not only were all things created by Jesus, the last three words of verse 16 says, “and for him.”
SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!
Everything was created FOR Jesus?
GET OUT OF TOWN!
Why was that?
Love.
I don’t think it was the kind of love Sarah Jessica Parker gets into in Sex In The City; slipping out of one bed into another, only to be disappointed with each “love affair.”
With a little reading of The Word I discovered that Jesus gives us a clue why everything was created by him and for him—it was his Father’s love for him!
Jesus is preparing to go to the Cross; He’s having an intensely personal conversation with the Father in John 17, it goes like this…
1When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you
Father and Son–this is the US, this is God still in community, still in fellowship.
2since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
Did you pick up on that?
Without reserve God the Father could give to the Son; the US, a unified community, trusting each other. I’ve found few people that I could really trust in life; but those I did were anchored in a deep friendship and fellowship.
3And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
What the heck?
Jesus seems to be saying here that eternal life is the community life of God.
I think I’ve always been taught that eternal life was escaping hell and walking streets of gold in heaven, where the band only plays southern gospel music by folks like The Blackwood Brothers, The Dixie Melody Boys, Dottie Rambo and The Gaither Vocal Band.
Jesus continues…4I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Holy Smoke…the Father and Son had a shared and equal glory in eternity past, and still do today.
Really?
I started to see that the story of Jesus was much bigger than I’d ever known; that there was the great and grand narrative that spanned eternity past and will span into eternity in the future.
Jesus continues to pray…6″I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
These were people that were created by, and for, Jesus when the US got together while twiddling their thumbs.
Do you suppose there was any thumb wrestling going on back then?
I really had never looked deeply into Jesus’ prayer in John 17 this way, but he continues… 7Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
Look at the characteristics of the community life of God–what is the Father’s, is the Son’s, and what is the Son’s, is the Father’s.
11And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
One God, three persons in relationship, indivisible, united, equal, without any reservations —Jesus was asking for the same thing for his disciples.
12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. 13But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 15I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Truth is a person!
Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, the life.”
The Word is a person!
John tells us “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
The visible expression of the invisible God.
Jesus says yet more…18As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. 20″I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us…
C’mon, man!
Is it true that Jesus is praying that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as One, expands their community and invites humans into it?
That’s nuts!
I’ve never heard that before!
…so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
Wait a minute; Jesus is praying these things so that the world may believe, that the world may see—God?
Is it possible that the things God had on his mind is higher than human need?
That it transcends our need of salvation?
If I’m reading this right Jesus seems to be saying that this was something that existed before the creation of the universe; it existed before sin, it existed in the community life of God.
IT WAS THEIR PLAN!
Is all this saying…God’s reason for everything is that his Son Jesus, for whom, and by, everything was created, would be visibly expressed through his Church– Jesus’ Bride, so that God would be exalted and displayed in all creation and glorified?
And, does it even transcend this world as Paul describes in Ephesians 3:10…“so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places”.
It occurred to me that I’ve always seen things in the Bible as little, self-contained stories of events that every once in a while seemed to be connected to each other, but never saw the whole thing as a coherent narrative that existed before the world was created.
More of Jesus’ prayer…22The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.
So, the Father and Son shared glory without fear of losing anything, in their community they have always willingly laid down their lives for one another—something we see in the Cross.
23I in them and you in me that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
All things were created FOR Jesus because the Father loves his Son.
This stuff was what was on God’s mind even before he said “let US create man in our image”.
Jesus is praying for undivided unity for his disciples…fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, so that the entire world may know and see the glory of God–God expressing himself, expanding himself.
This is a long prayer!
24Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world
God’s ultimate purpose for everything flowed out of his love for his Son, before the creation of the heavens and earth, oceans and stars, the universe and…Charlie Sheen.
Jesus concludes his prayer…25O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
I had a question?
How would Jesus continue to make the Father’s name known, He was going to the Cross to die.
It was through His Church, through His Body, through His Spiritual House, through His Bride that Jesus would continue to make the Father’s name know.
And finally, Jesus is asking that the same love the Father had for him would be expanded to his Bride— me!
You. His. Church.
So, I was beginning to get this picture that God wasn’t simply twiddling his thumbs after all.
Or, taking a nap.
Or, clipping his toenails in eternity past.
He had something on his mind…and that He…is an US.
I want to go back to what Paul was saying in Colossians 1…
17And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
The Father’s desire was and is that Jesus would be preeminent in everything.
Do you realize that if Jesus is preeminent in everything God is preeminent in everything?
If Jesus is preeminent in the Church, God is in preeminent in the Church?
As the Church expands and grows Jesus becomes more preeminent throughout our world.
More from Paul…19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
Knowing that God is an US (Genesis 1) inside of Christ the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. All that the Father is, all that the Holy Spirit is, all that Jesus is, is contained within Jesus.
A weak analogy would be that all that is in us is contained in our DNA—everything my father was, everything my mother was, is within me.
Finally Paul says…20and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
God, used the Son to reconcile all things back to himself, the way it was in Genesis 1-2 before sin entered the world.
Because all things were originally made for the Son.
The Son is reclaiming what was originally his, with the ultimate and final consummation at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19.
But all the way back in Genesis, back when God said, “let US make man in OUR image” there is more…Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
God created man.
Commanded him to be fruitful and multiply.
Gave him dominion over the earth.
And in doing so, from the beginning, God had invited man to be the extension and
representation of God in our world.
God, using man to expand himself, expand his fellowship.
So, there stands a scientist with the telescope to his eye peering at a Quasar in the expanding universe holding a reservoir of water hundreds of light years in size. And just as the reservoir is evidence of an expanding universe the Church is evidence that the community life of God is expanding.
Something God—the US—conceived while twiddling their thumbs.
